The instant application should be granted the priority date of Feb. 19, 2008, the filing date of the corresponding International patent application PCT/EP2008/001266.
The invention relates to a method for automatically creating a defined face opening in longwall mining operations, having a face conveyor, at least one extraction machine, and a hydraulic shield support, in underground coal mining.
One problem in the automatic control of longwall operations, both in the mining direction and also in the extraction direction of the extraction machine, is, inter alia, to produce a sufficiently large face opening, in order to ensure the passage of the longwall equipment without collisions between extraction machine and shield support frames, for example as the extraction machine travels past, on the one hand, and to keep the rock collapse during the extraction work as limited as possible, and accordingly to restrict the extraction work to the seam horizontal as much as possible, without also cutting excessive country rock, on the other hand. The mineral deposit data about seam thickness, level of footwall or of the overlying strata, and the presence of saddles and/or troughs both in the mining direction and also in the longitudinal direction of the longwall equipment, i.e., in the extraction direction of the extraction machine, which are essentially available before the extraction, are too imprecise to be able to support automated control of the extraction and support work thereon.
The invention is therefore based on the object of disclosing a method of the type cited at the beginning, using which automation of the extraction and support work is possible with respect to creating a defined face opening on the basis of the data to be acquired at the longwall equipment.